Engaging the Body to Help us Navigate Transition with Susan Bernstein

Liesel Teversham

Liesel helps HSP introverts to embrace their sensitivity as a superpower, and overcome obstacles so they can thrive. She also works with clients to solve their health issues, and has authored 2 books. More here.

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Published on2015/11/12

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About: Career | Change | Healing and Growth | Interviews | Podcast

Dr. Susan Bernstein is an executive coach and career advisor who specializes in guiding smart, highly accomplished professionals who are also emotionally sensitive to powerfully boost their resilience and their results. Her clients make sensational shifts using the pioneering mind/body/spirit paradigms and processes she’s evolved over the past 15 years. She combines no-nonsense, pragmatic business guidance with deeply sensitive skill in the psychology of transitions to guide her clients through the often tumultuous landscapes of transitions, including careerecr change, promotions, and workplace conflicts. She generously shares guidance through her popular Sensational Shift blog, live online events, and speaking at venues including the Women in Leadership Conference, Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, and Fortune 100 companies. Susan is a veteran of companies including Intel and Accenture. She earned her MBA at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and both her masters and PhD degrees in Somatic Psychology from the Chicago School of Psychology’s Santa Barbara campus. You can connect with Susan at www.SensationalShift.com

Some Points We Discussed

Susan worked in a very stressful career which overwhelmed her.
She was booked off on medical leave for a whole month when she decided to do a course at the Institute for Heart Math.
She got back in touch with her heart and then her body.
She learnt to put her head in service of her heart rather than the other way round.
She believes it is important to listen to what is personally true and relevant to yourself and make that flourish in your workplace.
She calls this Sensational Self Leadership.
We need to know what we are doing in our own emotional self and then tune into other people around us in the workplace.
“Search Inside Yourself” book explores mindfulness.
Somatic Psychology asks us to sense what we are feeling in our bodies when we think of a particular memory or topic and to stay with that knowing the body holds information for us.
The issues are in the tissues of our bodies.
Through awareness of our bodies, we can shift those memories.
Moving can give us a new perspective.
If we want to change our mind, we need to change our body first.
The body speaks in metaphors.
Standing with our hands on our hips can make us feel powerful.
Our brains and bodies are very closely connected.
When we have an intuition, our heart registers it before the head.
Susan encourages people who feel overwhelmed to feel it out rather than figure it out.
Don’t believe everything you think.
Let the heart be the master and the mind serve the heart, not the other way around.